Introduction
The paper counterpart to the UK driving licence became obsolete from June 2015. The change is reported to be saving the DVLA £5m a year in reduced administrative costs. What will this really mean to employers who need to validate licences for staff that undertake work-related driving?
Employers can no longer take a copy of an employee’s licence, or check it to see whether the driver has any points, unless they still have the pre-1998 paper licence which is still valid. Information regarding any convictions will now only be held on the DVLA computer. Visual checks were never an accurate or secure way of verifying a licence, because anyone intent on fraud would find it fairly easy to obtain a duplicate licence to show their employers. Visual checks were also a big drain on internal resources, especially for firms with large fleets.
Employees who don’t have a photo-card licence, and only hold pre-1998 paper driving licences, which were before the photo-card was introduced, are unaffected as those paper licences will remain valid, so should not be destroyed. It would, however, be administratively difficult to do two sorts of checks, and given the unreliability of such paper copies, it would be wise to only do online checks in future.
Context
There are around one million drivers in the UK who are within 3 points, or one conviction, of a driving ban. As an employer, it is essential that you are not asking employees to drive who could be unlicensed. It is also thought that about 2% of people driving do not have a valid driving licence.
Some employers believe that, providing they comply with the relevant road traffic legislation – for example, their vehicles have valid MOT certificates and their employees have a valid driving licence – this is enough to ensure the safety of their employees while driving for work. Others think that unless they employ lorry or coach drivers, driving is not really a work issue; nothing could be further from the truth. Over half of all cars used on business are expected to suffer some form of damage each year. A third of road traffic accidents involve persons at work, and every year there are 14,000 road deaths and serious injuries involving people at work.
Many crashes are caused by drivers in poor health, with tiredness and poor eyesight being amongst the most common factor. Driving for work is probably the most dangerous of work activities, and one that must be carefully considered and dealt with.
Employers have legal and financial responsibilities to manage driving activities properly, and take measures to keep workers safe. For every £1 recovered through insurance, between £8 and £36 may be lost via uninsured costs.
Employer Actions
Employers must risk assess their driving for work activities, and manage those risks effectively within a safety management system. Employers have an explicit duty of care to all road users while their employees are driving on their business.
Work-related road safety must be incorporated into an organisation’s safety management system, and dealt with in the same way that all work-related risks are managed. The essential starting point is to establish a clear policy for managing work-related road safety. Such a policy must:
- be genuinely supported by senior personnel
- set out clear responsibilities and roles for all those involved
- describe the procedures and systems that need to be followed
- state the arrangements in place for monitoring compliance
- set out the arrangements in place for monitoring the effectiveness of the policy
Policy is important, but even more important is culture. Road safety requires a culture where drivers feel they can challenge their Line Manager if they are being asked to increase their risk on the road while working, whether this is being encouraged to speed or, to answer their mobile phone while driving. Many employers assume, wrongly, that if a person has a valid driving license this is sufficient. Incorrectly operating a vehicle can, and regularly does, have fatal consequences and should this happen whilst at work, the employer could be liable.
Some of that culture will be reflected in the training given:
- when they join the company; and
- when they are exposed to new, or increased risks in the workplace;
Where possible, employers should tailor training to the worker’s individual needs. The most effective way is to offer additional driver training, either run by a competent in-house trainer, or an outside external driver assessor/training organisation. You need to keep training records for each driver.
Licences Again
In the event of a road traffic fatality involving an employee without a valid licence, the employer would need to show adequate policies and procedures to try to prevent such an occurrence.
How to make licence checks:
- Ask your employees’ permission to go on the DVLA website to check their details. This means each driver has to register on the DVLA website and go to the View/Share Driver Record web page to create a one-time use consent code. By providing their employer with this one-off PIN number code is providing e-consent.
- The employee will need to have their own personal details to hand in order to verify their I.D. It is proposed that the online ID verification is soon going to be made more thorough, requiring the employee to have details of their passport number and evidence of utility bills to prove who they are.
- This will present a problem if employees do not have their own computer, or method of online access. We have been advised that the DVLA are checking IP addresses to make sure that no one is pretending to be someone they are not. It is unlawful to do these checks without their consent.
- The PIN number lasts only for 21 days (since 10th July 2015) and can only be used once, so if the time scale expires, or you need to check their licence regularly, you will need to ask the employee to go online and give you a new PIN number each time.
- An employee can withdraw their consent to the checks if the employer does not have a valid reason, i.e. they are not undertaking work-related driving.
- You will also need to build up your own management system for recording, checking and auditing. This is particularly important if any employee has a high level of points on their licence, which may require regular monitoring. It has been suggested that if you have more than 10 drivers, then it may be more economical to outsource. This figure seems low but actually there is a lot to building up the necessary checking and auditing system in-house.
- Alternatively, the administration involved means it can make more sense to outsource the work to one of the many businesses who will do this for you. Using an outside service to automate licence checking, and view the results online, may well cost less than in-house administration and offers greater scrutiny, directly against the DVLA data, so you can be absolutely sure of verifying your employee’s entitlement to drive.
- Some outsourced companies are able to provide their clients with real time alerts, which mean that you are told immediately about penalty codes issued to your drivers. This real time later system is limited currently to only a few organisations, who have negotiated this facility directly with the DVLA.
However online licence checking helps you:
- Identify ‘at risk’ drivers. Codes to pay particular attention to are:o SP codes are speeding penalties
o CD codes are to do with driving without due care and attention
o CU80 is lack of control of a vehicle, usually using a mobile phone
o DR codes are drink-related
o DD codes are reckless or dangerous driving
o TT99 penalty code signifies a “totting up” procedure of 12 penalty points or more within 3 years, and indicates that the driver is liable to be disqualified - Reduce the accident rate by removing vehicle abuse committed by unqualified drivers
- Save time by minimising manual intervention
- Reduces administration through accurate, easily accessible online information about drivers’ status
Conclusion
Employers should also implement vehicle spot checks, or check service and MOT history of their ‘grey fleet’. Whatever you do, we must stress the importance of making sure that employees are familiar with work-related driving employment policies, found in the Handbooks we put together for clients. You need to document the risk factors associated with driving for work, to ensure that safety remains in the forefront of your employee’s minds.
If you have a lot of work-related drivers, then the legal obligations are clear and, it is now time to decide what type of systems you develop to undertake these important driving checks. I have repeatedly said that driving is the riskiest activity you will ever undertake during the course of your work. Protect your employees, and protect your organisation by taking this matter seriously.
Our Consultants would be pleased to advise you on any element of the issues arising from this newsletter.
